Wheelchair fencer Piers Gilliver won the fifth medal of his glittering Paralympics career to date when he secured Category A sabre silver in the stunning surroundings of the Grand Palais on Tuesday.
It was a first Paralympic medal with the weapon for Gilliver – whose previous medals in Rio and Tokyo had come in the epee individual, and epee and foil team events – and was the perfect start to his campaign for four podium places in Paris.
As top seed, Gilliver, who trains in the Wheelchair Fencing National Training Centre at the University of Bath, was given a bye to the quarter-finals and had to wait until late afternoon for his first contest. He duly rattled off the first nine hits on his way to a 15-8 victory over Italy’s Matteo Dei Rossi before battling past Ukraine’s Artem Manko in a nail-biting semi-final, winning 15-14.
The final didn’t start until 11pm Paris time (10pm BST) and was close during the opening stages, with the Brit leading 8-7 at the interval, but eight hits in a row from opponent Maurice Schmidt saw the German take gold.
Gilliver, who will be looking to defend his epee title on Friday, is back in action on Thursday in the men’s foil team competition alongside Dimitri Coutya and Oliver Lam-Watson. They contest the individual foil events today (Wednesday).
Coutya had a frustrating first day of competition in the Category B sabre. He beat Ukraine’s Anton Datsko 15-2 in his opening bout but was edged out 15-13 in a fiercely-fought quarter-final against Poland’s Adrian Castro. He still had a bronze-medal chance in the repechage but, after defeating American Noah Hanssen 15-5, he was narrowly beaten 15-13 by Dmytro Serozhenko.
Gemma Collis was the third Brit in action on Tuesday in the women’s Category A sabre. She was beaten 15-7 by Ukraine’s Nataliia Morkvych in the last 16 and went into the repechage, where she quickly overcame Brazil’s Carminha Oliveira 15-0 and Chui Yee Yu of Hong Kong 15-9 before her medal bid was ended by a 15-10 defeat to France’s Brianna Vide.